fast-moon

[fast-moon]

Happy Birthday, General Leo!

Leo's birthday is July 8th!

In Dissidia Opera Omnia, Gilgamesh and Leo are ride-or-die besties, and Gilgamesh nicknames Leo "Little Leo". So I wanted to make a joke relating to that, then decided I didn't want the other FF6 characters who share names with Pokemon to miss out on the fun, so two images for the price of one!

EDIT: For those who haven't brushed up on their Pokemon since Gen 1 (I only know the later ones because of Pokemon Go): Terra - Terrakion Celes - Celesteela Leo - Litleo and Solgaleo Mog - Cosmog

[fast-moon]

I bought the new FFIX prequel book about Vivi, and apparently Quan died because he fucking blasted himself in the mouth with a rice cannonball.

This book also contains an exchange that's like:

Vivi: "Grandpa, the kids are making fun of me because I'm black." Quan: "It not just you, people make fun of me because I white."

[fast-moon]

I do not understand hotels.

Fancy Hotel: $400 a night, but if you want wifi, breakfast, soap, parking, pillows, or hot water, that's extra. If you so much as breathe on the bottle of water on the dresser, you will be fined. But your housekeeper will fold your towel into the shape of a monkey for free* *(but you will be expected to tip them because we don't pay them)

Basic Hotel: Free wifi, free breakfast, free ice, free parking, free toiletries, free cable, free pool, and we'll even do your laundry. $80.

[fast-moon]

I now have exactly one card.

Welp, if I was only allowed to have one card from the Final Fantasy Magic the Gathering set, they at least made it an easy choice.

(also, why is it his full name? None of the other character cards are their full names. Is he in trouble?)

[fast-moon]

Welp, if I was only allowed to have one card from the Final Fantasy Magic the Gathering set, they at least made it an easy choice.

(also, why is it his full name? None of the other character cards are their full names. Is he in trouble?)

[fast-moon]

That feeling when you're in a fandom for something that hasn't had any new merch or content for 30 years and suddenly...

Like, I don't even play, but I want them just on principle.

[fast-moon]

Got a new computer and one of the first things I had to make sure of was that my FF6 save files where I'd glitched Kefka and Leo into my party got ported over when I reinstalled Steam. I have my priorities straight.

[fast-moon]

Reminder that most American schoolchildren only learn the opening paragraph to the Declaration of Independence ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal", etc). Leading us to believe it was a fairly generalized document broadly denouncing tyranny and promoting justice.

But no. The remainder of the document that we don't learn is a fucking itemized list of the exact specific behaviors that should cause Americans to rise in protest of their ruler. See if any of these sound familiar:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us

[fast-moon]

I've always been a very frugal and utilitarian person, never spending money on things I don't need or that have limited to no practical use. I'd been mulling over this figure for years, but my utilitarian brain was always telling me "no".

But two weeks ago, I was thinking about it again, and told my brain, "If I'm still thinking about buying this even after multiple years, that means I've never been convinced I don't need it. And in this current climate, isn't happiness a need, too?"

Long story short, I love her.

[fast-moon]

"Tsutsuganashiya" Adachitoka One-Shot

So. Apparently Adachitoka is shilling for Iwate tourism now and penned a one-shot comic to tempt you to come to Iwate, lol. They've got friendly neighborhood gods!

So, for old time's sake, time to break out those translation chops and give you guys a little taste of Noragami-adjacent material!

Google Mirror Mediafire Mirror

"Tsutsuganashiya" is like "Safe Travels"

Sample Images:

[fast-moon]

New Adachitoka oneshot just released! Are you thinking of translating it at all?

Oh wow, Tumblr is really garbage about notifying me when I have messages, so I only just now saw this. I wasn't aware of this one-shot at all and had to go searching around for it.

Sure, I can translate it, since the content is tangentially Noragami-flavored. Thanks for letting me know about it! ... Three months ago, lol.

[fast-moon]

Happy Valentine's Day to those people who you're not necessarily romantically involved with, but who is your safe space whom you can open your heart up to when you really need to vent. You people are our anchors in a chaotic world.

Bonus: text-only version

[fast-moon]

I've been spending the last few months brainstorming for a potential playable FF6 prequel by utilizing the original FF6 game engine. And that it would have covered the 16-18 years prior to the beginning of the original game from the Empire's side, showcasing the the Magitek experimentation, Kefka's increasingly brazen power-grabs, and the Empire's subjugation of the Southern Continent.

And I really, really hate how much the United States is currently giving me so much real-time research in exactly how this sort of thing goes down. Including how powerless the military and regular citizenry are at stopping it.

My desire for putting the player in the Empire's shoes and humanize them wasn't to justify what the Empire was doing, but to illustrate how easily "this could be you". And then here I am. It's already me.

[fast-moon]

I was eating at a restaurant and was trying to pull up nutrition info to estimate what I should put in my calorie tracker, and I ended up with an AI result giving me the calorie content of "one cup of sandwich".

[fast-moon]

My Top 10 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Episodes

So, since I marathoned the entire series and now have nothing better to do than to reminisce, I figured I'd go back and revisit some of my favorite episodes and give a bit more thoughts on them beyond the one-line snark I did when I was liveblogging the whole series during my first-time watch.

These are just the top 10 episodes that personally stuck with me for one reason or another, whether it be the topic they explored, the way it was executed, or basically just stuff that left me thinking, "Huh, that gave me something to think about."

10. 2x14 Whispers So we're still back in the era where the "Let's torture O'Brien" episodes weren't quite as grim as some of the later ones, and also before O'Brien's started getting redpilled. Early-season O'Brien episodes tended to be more enjoyable because the tone was more "Oh my god, they killed O'Brien!" (which an incarnation of him does die in this episode), before they took an uncomfortably dark turn starting with "Tribunal" and "Hard Time".

This episode is mostly notable due to its kind of brilliant twist ending, where it's revealed that we've been following an imposter O'Brien the entire episode and the real one had been kidnapped and held prisoner the whole time. Something similar ends up happening a few seasons later with a Changeling version of Bashir.

But early seasons really did love their crazypox episodes, so on an initial watch, it was easy to come to the same conclusion O'Brien did that there was some kind of conspiracy going on or everyone had been affected by something while he was away, similar to that TNG episode where Picard comes back to the ship and everyone's returned to monke.

There isn't much else to say about the rest of the episode, though, but the clever reveal at the end that re-contextualized the entire rest of the episode stuck with me through the whole series, which is why this one can earn the #10 spot on the list, at least.

9. 3x07 Civil Defense Attention Bajoran workers: The failure to rank this episode in the top 5 will cause the remainder of this list to self-destruct in 10 minutes.

This time instead of just torturing O'Brien, O'Brien decides to take everyone down with him by accidentally tripping an old Cardassian security protocol meant to suppress rioting prisoners. The crew then have to figure out how to disable it before the protocol escalates its countermeasures to total station annihilation.

I liked this episode because it ended up being a whole-ensemble episode without the focus on any one character. Except for locking Odo in his office with Quark, rendering him mostly useless the whole episode. Well, useless to the rescue mission. His role was to supply us with ample Odo/Quark banter, which he did very well with.

I did really end up liking the Odo/Quark frenemy relationship. They've got this sort of Lupin III/Zenigata thing going on with the inspector and the thief, constantly trying to outwit each other but also silently respecting each other. Just that "Zenigata" tends to win most of the time. And they do still have each other's backs if one of them gets in trouble (that they didn't cause). Sort of an "I'm the only one who gets to defeat you" kind of thing.

But this episode gets the honor of being the first one to make me laugh out loud, when Dukat tries to transport away after smugly gloating at everyone's predicament for 5 minutes, only to discover his codes had been overwritten and all he could do was stand there awkwardly twiddling his thumbs. It was also at that moment that I stopped being able to take him seriously as a villain, even when the series repeatedly tried to re-villainize him later. It just never worked. He will always be the guy who got caught in his own trap, and then later got stabbed in the ass with a cactus.

Just the way I'm sure Garak wants him remembered.

8. 3x17 Visionary They managed to kill O'Brien three times in this episode, so that's a new high score. And on a re-watch, I realized this episode was also the introduction of the dart board that then carried through the rest of the series.

The B-plot also involved some great scenes with Odo, with his memorable "I always investigate Quark" quip, to his "I just needed to remind you how good I am". And it's also three episodes out from "Heart of Stone", so Odo's crush on Kira is getting pushed hard, too. Kira's reaction to the Romulans' accusation that Odo had feelings for her felt more like she was being protective of him rather than embarrassment. That she had the understanding that he was aro-ace, completely respected that, and would get angrily defensive at anyone who tried to insinuate otherwise, since he has a hard time advocating for himself. As someone who's aro-ace myself, I very much recognize that frustration at people going to great lengths to "prove" that you do secretly want to date or fuck someone and simply don't want to admit it.

But what I like about O'Brien's side of this episode is how he just begrudgingly rolls with it like, "I guess this is my life now". And that everyone is basically immediately on-board with it like, "Oh, so O'Brien's tripping through time now. Hey, can you check tomorrow's lottery numbers?" instead of wasting half the episode not believing him.

And also in true Star Trek fashion, they figure out all the components necessary for his time-travel, from the radiation to the temporal frequencies coming off the anomaly, to the point where they can control the timing and execute it at will. And then proceed to never put this knowledge to use again. TNG was notoriously bad about this, as they regularly used the transporter to cure diseases, reverse aging, or straight-up bring people back to life, and then completely forget they can do that by the next time a similar problem arises. But think of how many problems they could have averted if they simply bothered to peek 5 hours into the future on the regular.

The ending of the episode also poses an interesting philosophical question, where the "Prime" timeline O'Brien dies, and instead sends back his incarnation from three hours in the future to live out the rest of his life. So is this still the "real" O'Brien? If instead the framing of the episode was that O'Brien went back in time and re-lived the last 3 hours of his life, then continued as normal, would it be interpreted the same? Because with all of Prime O'Brien's time-skips, the future incarnations of himself, including the two dead ones, ceased to exist, anyway, due to him changing the future with his foreknowledge.

Next time Keiko comes back, she'll give him the side-eye and be like, "I can tell..."

7. 2x08 Necessary Evil A film noir-style origin story for Odo, chronicling how he became chief of security on the station while it was under Cardassian rule, and how he first met Kira and Quark.

What stood out to me about this episode was how we'd had an entire season telling us about how things were under Cardassian occupation, but this was the first episode to actually show it. Plus Odo had a cooler outfit back when he was working for the bad guys, because bad guys always have cooler outfits. The Bajoran onesies are certainly one of the more questionable design choices for this series. I do miss Kira's shoulder pads from the early seasons, though.

So, the wife of a murdered Bajoran collaborator hires Quark to find his list of other collaborators so she can blackmail them for money, and hires a hitman to take out Quark. This causes Odo to reopen the investigation into her husband's death, which I guess he never actually solved originally, given that he didn't figure out Kira was the killer until the present day end of the episode.

But I like how this episode has a bit where Odo insists that he "doesn't take sides" and is only interested in impartial justice, but still ends up protecting Kira from Dukat after she confesses to a different crime than the one he's been charged with investigating. That "not choosing sides" isn't necessarily "justice" if the status quo itself is unjust.

This was also the episode where Rom seemed to start making the turn from the scheming sidekick who wanted Quark dead to beginning to have some actual personal skills and motives, such as being able to tamper with locks. He's not as stupid as he looks ("Yes I am!").

Also, Kira and Odo respect the shit out of each other even when there's friction between them, and I am all for that, every time.

6. 6x19 In the Pale Moonlight Hey, everybody, who wants some war crimes?!

There's a saying along the lines of, "The people who insist you use the proper channels are the ones who control those channels and know they won't work." And that, if there is an injustice that needs to be righted, and all legal means of righting it have been exhausted, does it justify extra-legal means?

In this episode, Sisko is desperate to turn the tide of the war so enlists the help of Garak to try to trick the Romulans into joining the war against the Dominion with a forged recording. The Romulan senator discovers it's a faaaake, but Garak has his ship blown up on the way home in such a way that the Dominion is implicated, anyway.

And Sisko insists that if he'd do it all again if he had to, since it got him what he needed and potentially saved the Alpha Quadrant. And as I get older, I'm more inclined to agree with him. I see so many problems continuing to persist because people would rather do nothing and keep their hands clean, than take action that might dirty their conscience. "This policy will fix a problem for 90% of the people who have it, but if we support it, it will look like we are actively shunning those 10% of people who won't be helped, so it's morally better to not help anyone so everyone continues to suffer equally."

Then there's also the issue where, if your enemy is breaking a rule with no consequence, why should you be obligated to follow it yourself? If you snitch on a resistance group trying to take down the evil empire, no one is going to be commending your dedication to truth and justice.

So in Sisko's case, I can't really fault his methodology, only marvel at the fact that it spiraled so far out of his control and yet he still managed to pick up a win at the end due to Garak being even more conniving than he was and having a backup plan that included murder. But if that one murder ended up saving millions of lives due to prompting a change in policy, does it become justified?

Asking for a guy who shot a health insurance CEO.

5. 2x22 The Wire It's only appropriate that the day I re-watch this episode to figure out where to rank it on the list is the day after Lower Decks drops an episode establishing Garak and Bashir having a romantic relationship in a parallel universe (with their actors reprising their roles, no less).

I'm not really a "shipper", though, as I find that there are scant few relationships in media that I feel would be improved if the relationship was turned romantic. That doesn't mean that a relationship turning romantic necessarily makes it worse, just that it's, at best, a lateral move, where the relationship remains exactly as it was before, just with the understanding that they're now "in love". But a lot of times media injects petty drama and bickering into a relationship once it turns romantic, which ends up destroying the chemistry that made the relationship compelling in the first place when it was platonic. So generally I'd rather just have good chemistry and leave it at that.

So here's an episode with two characters with good chemistry, interacting. Sold.

But we find that Garak's chipper personality until now seems to mostly have been drug-induced, as he's been riding a perpetual high the entire time he's been on the station to cope with being exiled. Now he's starting to suffer from severe side-effects of this dependency, and Bashir has to wean him off of it and help him through withdrawal.

This episode is noteworthy in that it's the episode that redeemed Bashir for me, first and foremost. In season 1, Bashir almost single-handedly ruined the series for me with how insufferable and womanizing he was. He very much did not come across as someone I could trust with my health and safety. But this episode is where he finally took the turn to actually acting like a doctor, Jim, not a narcissist.

Especially with all the skirt-chasing he was doing, he didn't seem to even particularly like any of the women he was chasing, or who were awkwardly written into romances with him with zero build-up, like Leeta or Ezri. Bashir must have a love interest, and it must not be any of the people he actually has rapport with.

We also finally get some Garak backstory, too. ... Or do we? His whole routine has been basically making it up as he goes along, but now that I have the blessing of foresight from having seen the rest of the series, he's actually not too terribly out of line here. He was indeed Obsidian Order, he was indeed "son of Tain". But even with the foresight, it's still unclear what story of his banishment is true. Or we can just take his word for it that they're all true. Even the lies.

Especially the lies.

4. 7x14 Chimera A recurring theme in my episode-by-episode reactions during my initial watch-through was #JusticeForOdo, due to how poorly he was accommodated by the station and crew. That it was just "easier" for everyone else if he contort himself into unnatural shapes every day in order to simply exist among them and perform his duties. And how this imbalance was never really addressed.

Well, it took 7 seasons, but it finally fucking was.

One thing that sci-fi is great for is allegory for social and political topics. People get so inundated with real-world examples of "racism bad", "sexism bad", "homophobia bad" that they tend to become numb to it. Show someone something they've seen a hundred times, and they're likely not going to feel any differently about it than they did before. So you have to make it novel to them to get them to reconsider it. Ask "why can't this man wear a dress in public when it's not hurting anyone", and they'll already have a canned answer ready without even having to think about it. Ask "why can't this man turn into fog in public when it's not hurting anyone", and now they have to think about it, because a canned answer for that isn't available.

On the other side, the episode also doesn't try to paint the station crew as unnecessarily xenophobic or Laas as an innocent victim. They are currently at war with the other Changelings, and so far, Odo is the only one they've ever met who's been "one of the good ones". So their suspicion is, unfortunately, justified. The problem is then compounded by them even being willing to give Laas a chance initially and reach out to him, and Laas being openly xenophobic right back at them, due to his own prior encounters with Solids. It's riding a thin line between having the right to express yourself and going out of your way to offend people and then crying victim when they get upset.

And by the end, all of this starts leading to the uncomfortable conclusion that sometimes two people are too radically different to comfortably co-exist. Laas only seems more reasonable than the Founders because he thinks oppression of other races is excessive, but segregating them is fine. That meeting the needs of one would require too many concessions from the other, and vice-versa. Laas repeatedly presses Odo about how "accepted" he truly is when he has to go out of his way to hide his true nature in public to maintain everyone else's relative comfort. Which is a very valid point.

So one thing I think this episode missed out on, was at least addressing that point for Odo. That things are only uncomfortable when they're novel, but over time as people get used to them and recognize that they're not a threat, they become accepted. Even in media, we've gone from only white men being represented, to Black men, to women, to interracial relationships, to same-sex relationships, all within only, like, 50 years. Similarly with Odo, I feel like there should have been a scene where Sisko states that Odo has always been free to shapeshift in public, and if anyone has a problem with it, they'd have to go through him.

Instead, that permission is limited to Kira. Which, great, and I continue to love how much of an ally and an advocate she is for him. And also her feeling of inadequacy due to there being a level of intimacy that she is physically incapable of giving him, and being okay with him leaving her for someone who can if that's what would make him happiest. So my aro-ace self is still absolutely enamored with the ending where Odo declines to go along with the guy who can give him the most mind-blowing sex in favor of staying with the person who makes him feel emotionally fulfilled.

3. 6x25 The Sound of Her Voice So, my absolute favorite dynamic is "The person you can comfortably vent your ails to." So many annoying conflicts happen in media simply because characters fail to communicate with each other. Or characters are too traumatized to talk about a problem until it becomes everyone else's problem. When so much can be solved by just having someone to talk to.

And that's what this episode is about. The crew intercepts a distress call from a marooned captain who is a 6-day journey away. She's running out of oxygen, so to help keep her conscious, they spend the entire journey keeping her talking over communications and taking turns having conversations with her.

And by doing so, basically the entire crew gets therapy without even realizing it. They're all mentally exhausted from the war and have been starting to become distant from each other. And it's a reality that if you have a problem, and everyone around you is associated with that problem (even if they're not the cause), then it's hard to talk to them about it. Because it means all your frustrated energy is simply recirculating into the same circle. It needs to be vented to the outside, to a third party.

I also love the B-plot of this episode utterly lampshading Odo's tsundere personality, and also a heartwarming take on Odo and Quark's relationship. Quark's got a scheme and needs Odo distracted, so tries to get Odo set up on a date with Kira. Odo ends up rescheduling his date last-minute, which puts Quark in a panic that he'll be found out. Except Odo has already found out, and decides to schedule his date back to when it's most convenient for Quark in order to let him have this one, in order to silently thank him for his efforts in helping him with his relationship with Kira.

The A-plot with the marooned captain then ends with a twist that the transmission they'd been interacting with the entire time had been time-shifted, and the captain had already died of hypoxia three years prior, so they never would have reached her in time. But the crew still decide to recover her body and hold a funeral for her in thanks for her help in getting them to open up about their problems and talk through them.

... Though, it's a good thing the time-shifted transmission still ended before they reached the planet. Otherwise they might have found her body while she was still talking to them, and that would have made for an awkward conversation.

2. 5x06 Trials and Tribble-ations So, I had actually seen this episode a couple times before back in the 90's because one of my friends had taped it and insisted I watch it, because it was kinda infamous at the time. And because I saw it as a teenager with no context for the rest of DS9 (I had at least already seen the original TOS episode), watching it now 30 years later as an adult was kind of weird because it was like... I remembered the scenes and dialogue, but I didn't know who the DS9 characters (aside from Worf) were at the time. I didn't know Kira was pregnant or Odo was stuck in human form at this point in the continuity. I didn't know why Sisko kept calling Dax "Old Man". All I knew was that they had been Forrest Gumped into a TOS episode for the lulz.

And you know what? Lulz are important. A lot of other episodes on this list are ones that have some kind of socio-political or psychological thematic discussion, but this one is just "Woo, self-insert fanfic time!"

I do love that it pokes fun at its own history, like the OG Klingons not having forehead prosthetics and simply having goatees instead, or how laughably bulky all of the handheld equipment was. Granted, they were poking fun at the 60's view of futuristic tech being so analog, and now we poke fun at the 90's view of futuristic tech still being so tied to physical media (like needing a different pad for each document). I'm sure 30 years from now, they'll be laughing at how quaint our view of future tech looked.

The editing in this episode is certainly still impressive for being done on a 90's TV budget, though there are still some areas were it was obvious characters were pasted into the background. The shadows on O'Brien and Bashir when Kirk paces in front of them during the line-up are quite clearly edited in. But the best part is Dax and Sisko being in the storage bin tossing tribbles onto Kirk's head.

It's also hilarious that time-travel happens so often in the Star Trek universe that they have specific training and departments dedicated to handling it. Although, it's also amusing that time travel only seems to happen to the main characters. What happens if they're all sitting around minding their own business, and some other Starfleet crew went back in time and mucked up the timeline and suddenly everything's different? The investigators said that Kirk alone had 17 temporal violations, and the DS9 crew time-travels at least once a season. Hell, Quark time-traveled by accident just by carrying a shipment of magic rocks. If it's that common for them, it must be that common for everyone else.

This episode didn't have any kind of mind-blowing message, but it was silly, it was memorable, and it was innovative enough to get me to watch it back when I wasn't even interested in this series, so that earns it it's spot on this list. 1. 1x19 Duet It was a tough call whether to place this episode or the Tribble one first because they're absolutely impossible to compare. But this episode caught me off guard by literally making me cry at the end, even on a re-watch when I already knew what the reveal was.

Plus it deals with a topic that I spend a lot of time contemplating myself: how much the rank and file of a corrupt regime should realistically be expected to be able to do anything about it. Generally the lower your standing, the more extreme measures you'd need to take in order to have any chance at affecting anything, so at what point can you judge someone for not taking an extremely personally risky action to save others?

So in this episode we have Marritza, a low-level Cardassian file clerk who was stationed at a brutal Bajoran concentration camp. He ends up haunted by his time there and wracked with guilt that there was nothing he could do to stop it, so assumes the identity of the camp's leader, Gul Darheel, and gets himself captured. His intent is to take all the Bajorans' anger at the occupation onto himself and give themselves a target of vengeance, and have himself stand trial to force the Cardassians to acknowledge what they did.

But over the course of the episode, Kira figures out his ploy and becomes sympathetic to him. As much as she hates Cardassians for what they did, she can't bring herself to use an innocent one as a scapegoat to take out her anger on, even if he's gift-wrapped himself for her for that purpose.

This also ended up being the episode that really enamored me to Kira. She had already been a decent character, but up until now I had worried that she would just be the 90's archetype of a "strong female character" who's simply an impulsive hot-head who gets offended at everything. And while she started out with an irrational vengeful streak in this episode, she also proved that she could accept new evidence and view an emotionally-charged situation objectively. Which is super hot.

[fast-moon]

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Thoughts

Pretty much the entire reason I started watching Picard in the first place was because I'd heard: 1) Season 3 was actually really good, 2) Season 3 followed up on the end of DS9, 3) Season 3 got Kevin Feige interested in tapping Terry Matalas to head the Vision Quest D+ series. So, did it deliver on those expectations?

Compared to the first two seasons, hell yes.

So, first and foremost coming straight out the gate, the intro has been simplified, returned to more classic Trek stylization, and most importantly, back to playing the original Trek theme.

It's not like there was anything particularly bad about the music in seasons 1 and 2. But for something to feel like Star Trek, it needs more than a couple people in rubber foreheads spouting some technobabble keywords. There's a specific visual and audio style that people associate with it, too.

And friggin' hot damn, season 3 knew what that musical style was. Including call-backs to things like the Klingon theme from the TOS movies, the Voyager theme when Voyager or its crew were referenced, and the liberal usage of TNG's original theme. I am an absolute nerd for leitmotif and the association between a character or event and a particular piece of music, and I give mad props to writing staff who understand how to use that effectively.

Although, it almost feels like they went, "You know what, scrap seasons 1 and 2, we're starting over." Pretty much all of the new characters from the first two seasons are gone. Rios's absence can be explained by him staying back in 2024 to help fight against the upcoming ethnic cleansing of Latinos. Jurati went all Borg and then went to sit in front of the Anomaly of Great Future Plot Importance (No Really Trust Us). But Soji and Elnor just kind of disappeared off the face of the universe with no explanation. And pretty much the entire point of Season 2 was to let Picard come to terms with his feelings and open up to Laris. But in this season it's like, "lol, bye, going back with my baby momma." Raffi is the only new character still around.

Also, how did she get the La Sirena back (also, is "the" La Sirena redundant)? Last we saw at the end of Season 2, it was commandeered by the Borg queen in 2024 and then flown off never to be seen again. Or are we assuming that was the Mirror Universe version of the ship and the Prime Universe version was still floating around somewhere?

But they're facing a new threat this time around and it's... the Changelings! Yeah, turns out when Odo returned to the Great Link to deliver the cure to the Section 31 virus and teach them to play nice with solids, a portion of them were like "Hell no" and broke away to keep on Guerilla Dominion Warring.

I get why Odo wasn't a guest appearance in the series proper due to Rene Auberjonois passing away before the series was even produced, but it's weird that they didn't even mention him by name the several times he and his actions were directly referenced. Doubly weird that there were no DS9 cameos at all despite this season being about the DS9 overarching villains (I don't count Worf since he's not a character who was first introduced in DS9). No calls to Bashir in reference to Changeling physiology or his work on the cure for the Section 31 virus? No reaching out to non-Starfleet like Kira or Garak while they were on the run and hiding in the Chin'toka system? Or use the opportunity to canonically confirm that Sisko came back? At least Worf receiving intel from Odo confirms that Odo at some point re-established contact with the Alpha Quadrant.

Though, I was a bit disappointed that the Changelings were mostly a red herring and by the end it was just "but wait, more Borg". Although, the revelation that the Borg had been performing stealth assimilation via patching in rogue genetic code through the transporters was pretty clever. And in true TNG fashion, the ending is "the transporters can fix all that ails you".

But not content with the mere cameos in the previous seasons, this time we're bringing the entire original TNG crew back together for one last hurrah. Including like the eleventeenth incarnation of Data, because there's always a spare Data lying around when you're missing one.

And not only the entire original crew, but the original Enterprise-D, too, including a rebuild of the original TV bridge set. And the main thing that struck me about that is how bright it was. I seriously don't understand the modern production habit of having very dimly-lit sets where everything in it is some shade of grey, and all the characters are wearing black. But the Enterprise-D set is like... colors! And wood! And light! Like Picard said, "I missed the carpet".

Yeah, maybe my approval of this season is being clouded by the rampant nostalgia bait, but I also feel it was more tightly-written than the previous seasons. It still suffered from quite a bit of "this conflict is only happening because people refuse to talk to each other" and "I made a terrible decision because aaaaaangst", but it didn't feel quite as overbearing as the other two seasons. That and it completely re-used the "character hallucinates about a colored door that teases you for 90% of the season" from season 2.

So it certainly ended on a high note with a heartwarming send-off to the original crew (who thankfully don't get stupidly killed off for drama). It did make its attempts at light-hearted banter once the whole crew was back together for the final two episodes, but I still felt like the series as a whole still had a pall of cynicism hanging over it, where I preferred Trek when it was more bright and campy. DS9 showed that you can still tackle tough topics without sacrificing the energy that makes you care about the people whom those topics are happening to in the first place. And I do wish more modern productions that are stuck in their "edgelord" phase could learn from that.

[fast-moon]

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 Thoughts

So, Picard's got a new crew together, with cameos from some of the old ones, and at the end of the last season they looked like they were ready to go adventuring off into space. So, where do they end up in season 2?

Mirror Universe. Fuck me.

I mean, thankfully they're only in the Mirror Universe for, like, one episode, and then it's "Hey, you know how everyone liked Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home? Let's do that, but without the silliness." Yes, because it totally wasn't the silliness that endeared people to Star Trek IV in the first place.

The season opens on the already questionable development that Picard's male Romulan attendant has died offscreen or something, so now that leaves his female Romulan attendant to be available as a love interest! I don't inherently take issue with giving Picard a love interest, given that he had his share of flings in TNG, but this was certainly a... way... to go about it.

What I do take issue with is the season's heavily repeated theme that if you haven't found a love interest, than it's because you're a broken person who must have some kind of psychological trauma, because seriously, what's wrong with you? Especially because they still went the DS9 route of "being in love means you bicker all the fucking time". Holy shit, it is entirely possible for people to be completely functional and content with only platonic relationships, which many of the current generation are finding out.

Like, I get that the theme of the season is "connection", and I will give it credit for using the Borg as a vessel to illustrate the need for a bond with others. But it was still a complete mess in how it attempted to tell this story.

I mean, what even was the story it was trying to tell? Let me see if I can piece it together. So, Q is dying, so decides to fuck up the timeline and send Picard and crew to an alternate timeline where everyone is a xenophobic asshole who celebrate public executions of other races. And they discover that something happened in 2024 that broke the timeline.

Yes, yes, I think we all already know what happened in 2024 that caused the planet to collapse into an authoritarian, xenophobic hellhole.

But from a Star Trek perspective, 2024 was the Bell Riots, so we're gonna go and hang out with Sisko, Dax, and Bashir? Cool.

Nope, they went to April 2024, not September, so they beat Sisko to messing with the timeline by a few months.

The actual event that Q messed up was that he prevented Picard's ancestor from going to space, which collapsed all of human civilization for some reason.

But! The reason he wanted to mess up the timeline was so that... Picard would get hit by a car and fall into a coma where he could work out his childhood trauma? So this was all so that Q could basically just re-hash Tapestry?

I know John DeLancie had been playing Discord on My Little Pony for a number of years prior to this, but Q tends to be a little less, I dunno, chaotic.

And also so that they could create the Good Queen Borg and meet her when they got back to the corrected timeline, just so that she could point out this gigantic galaxy-destroying hole in space right behind them that for some reason no one noticed until she pointed it out to them.

I just... I don't know. I can see why people were not too thrilled with this season, because it was just all over the place. Even the direct references to Star Trek IV like the boombox guy on the bus and the "I'm from Chile, I only work in outer space" felt forced because they were tonally incompatible with how the rest of the season was written.

Also, the writers don't seem to know what to do with Elnor. The first thing he did in Season 1 was get left behind on the Borg Cube, then he spends most of this season dead. He seems like the character who would be the most compelling simply due to the fact that his whole thing is that he's honest and open with his emotions rather than being a cryptic, cynical edgelord like everyone else, but he's been sidelined ever since he was introduced. At this point, what is he even here for?

At least Q, despite the questionable plot direction, was still on his game. I was a big Q fangirl back during the original TNG run, and it's good to see he can still give a comparable performance after all these years (although, the aforementioned stint as Discord probably helped, since Discord was literally based on Q).

All right, I hear it picks up in Season 3, so fingers crossed.